Saturday, 19 October 2013

I know I haven't been posting up these articles here like I said I would, but I was just busy. I'm hoping to get to them (in reverse order) over the following weeks.

Also, it's worth noting that I'm no longer a columnist on En World, so if miss the columns there, then feel free to bug the management to rehire me.

You can find all the old columns right away in the archived pages on the En World's column page. I think mine go back all the way to the first page.

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Most GMs, at some point in their
illustrious careers, will have to design a village. What at first
appears to be a ridiculously easy task will, on closer inspection, turn
out to ‘be’ a ridiculously easy task. In case you’re designing your
village at 2 a.m. and can’t think straight, there’s always this handy
guide to help you remember if you missed something.

1. Reason for Existing

Thanks to @Hand of Evil for this fine idea.

First off, it would make great sense to figure out why someone would
build a village here in the first place. Is it at a location of rich
natural abundance? Is it near good farmland? Is there a mine or other
interesting locale around?

Most villages aren't just built somewhere for no reason. Even if the
reason is just that the village is along a trade route or houses the
families of the men who man the wall. The reason the village exists can
even help you to figure out a name for the village.

2. Name the Village

The most important part of creating a village is the name. If you’re too
lazy to bother with naming the village, then you might as well do what
the rest of us GMs do and just make everything up as you go along. If
you have the skill to do this, you most definitely don’t need this
article in the least. You can probably only use it as some mild
amusement as to the crazy antics that lesser GMs get up to. “Ha, the guy
needs a whole guide just to create one simple village? I can do that in
ten seconds. It’s a village and it’s got a pub. There, took me two
seconds.”

The first problem you’re run into when creating a name for a village is
that your handy name generator just gives you character names and it
would be really weird if the village were named “Bilbo” or “Bobby
McGuire.” If you’re particularly creative, you might take the time to
actually write down a secret page of village/location names. Then all
you have to do is pick and choose or roll your dice. Rolling your dice
is probably the better option as it will scare the pants off the
players.

Regardless, you’ll still have to come up with some good village names
sooner or later. If you actually coordinate the village names in your
kingdoms, then you’re way ahead of the game. So far ahead, in fact, that
the players probably won’t even notice your effort. No, what we’re
aiming for here is a name that won’t immediately be ridiculed such as
“Dell, Cheerios, or Hamburger.”

Designing this interesting, unique, and yet not-too-complicated name
will require some effort. Probably about 5 seconds worth, actually. Try
to think up something random sounding and vaguely foreign. Then try to
pronounce it properly under your breath and see if it sounds completely
ludicrous or inappropriate. If it passes this test, you have your
village name.

Good village names: Castle-bar, Clover-down, Ixtiwickthick-o.

Bad village names: Jonathan, Nike, Free75, Google.

3. Determine the Location of the Village

The second most important thing is to figure out exactly where the
village is in relation to everything else. The best way to do this is to
create a map of the campaign. This is a single blank piece of paper. On
this map, create a small dot or something better if you’re feeling
artistic. I can usually handle a tiny picture of a house which looks
like what an 8-year-old would draw in techni-color with crayons. In the
map legend, or directly under this icon, place the name of the village
in some kind of legible way. If you scrawl it too tiny, the village name
might change all the time.

If you don’t have a map, or you don’t have time to add the village to
the map, just use vagueness as your friend. “The village is somewhere to
the east of the center of the world. That’s all you know.” Unless the
party has complex magic or mapping tools at their disposal, you should
be able to get away with this. After all, Google Maps hasn’t been
invented yet, right? One more reason fantasy campaigns can be easier to
run than sci-fi ones. However, “You’re lost in space,” is a great line,
too.

Using vagueness, you can then later fill in an arbitrary location for
the village when it suits you. Also, you can subtly reposition it to
strand the party in the middle of an inescapable desert.

4. Points of Interest

Good villages will have at least one point of interest, and some will
have several or more. Sometimes you can create an interesting village
with no particular points of interest. Especially if you don’t want the
party to waste 3 hours shopping around and talking to locales when they
could be getting eaten by a bear in the wilderness or falling down deep
pits in the dungeon.

Points of interest can be just about anything. So long as they’re
interesting—they qualify. Usually, these points of interest are static
locations, but they can also move around or be hidden. A thieves’ guild,
a town hall, a local pub, a smithy, a stable, a general store, a
healing temple, a wizard’s tower, a fortification, and more can all be
points of interest. These locations all share one thing in common: they
are places the players will be drawn to at some point. These are the
places in the village where things happen. Even a haunted farm can be a
point of interest.

Good points of interest often have a benefit to the players. If it’s
where the power is, the players will want to discuss things with the
village leaders. This could be missions, pay, problems, pleas, or
anything else the players want to get done.

A guard-station would be a source of aid to the players, or where they
end up repeatedly for breaking the law. A healing temple would be
frequented for obvious reasons. Magical aid is in high demand, so any
kind of wizard’s academy or tower will be a point of interest. Shops and
markets also make good points of interest because the players need to
buy supplies and equipment. If there’s some place the players can
compete in challenges or tournaments, this would also be a good point of
interest.

You can even create more specialized points of interest with a little
work. It could be that all major deals go down behind a certain bakery.
Maybe the thieves control the town from the basements the town was built
on. Perhaps a local monster holds the village elders under its power
and lives in a pile of pig defecation. Your options are practically
limitless. Just remember to make sure the point of interest has
something of value to the players in it. Otherwise, they might never
discover your cool creation, or might ignore it completely.
5. Key People

Very similar to points of interest, there can also be several key people
in the village. These people will either hold a lot of power, be
interesting personalities, or hold some agenda influencing the
adventure.

Some examples of key people are: the mayor, the local baron, the guard
captain, the wizard, the high priest, the witch, the merchant, or anyone
else the players will have reason to deal with. Obviously, anyone who
holds a great deal of power or a high position could potentially be of
great interest to the players. The local judge might be physically and
mentally weak, but if he controls the law of the land he can be a very
important person to know.

Some people might not hold any power, influence, or goods—but could
still be of great interest to the players. A mad hermit, a village fool,
a beggar, a crazy man, a funny farmer, a wandering minstrel, or a lost
knight. All of these people could be great NPCs.

On occasion you won’t have key people written up for your village. Other
times, the players might gravitate towards someone you hadn’t planned
to be special. Don’t let that stop you. Create a name and quick
personality for that key person and develop him or her. The barkeeper
could suddenly become a very important person to the players, as could a
random peasant, or a little girl. Provided they want to role-play with
this character, many bit characters can quickly gain much larger parts.
Some players are also fond of recruiting NPCs even if those NPCs don’t
seem to have any special skills or abilities to begin with. It’s up to
the GM to further develop those characters.

6. Adventure

A good village also has several locations which might be the basis for
adventures or interesting encounters. Not every village need be filled
with intrigues and monsters, but some can certainly make for great
adventures. Always remember that you don’t need to confine your
adventures only to the dungeons and the wilderness. The amount of
adventure you can pack into a small village is only limited by your
creativity and imagination.

Sometimes the players just want to rest and heal in the village. That’s
okay. You don’t need to have the inn constantly attacked by savage
monsters.

It’s a good policy to know where the local dungeons are situated,
strange magical wastelands, haunted forests, and so forth. You don’t
have to have every landmark filled with monsters, but merely hinting at
supposedly haunted castles will quickly put the players on edge.

7. Special Events and Quirks

Thanks to +Robert Bondoni for this suggestion: You should also consider if the village has any particular quirks that set it apart from other villages such as a strong favoring of one religion, blue tiles on all the floors, doors carved with intricate patterns so you can find the keyhole when you're drunk, or a tournament which happens to be running at a particular time when the players might show up.

Some of the special events you could add to your village include: tournaments, archery competitions, wizard conferences, market days, feasts, seasonal festivals, duels, public speeches, civil wars, gang fights, celebrations, weddings, coronations, and anything else you can imagine.
8. Add Your Own Elements

Any good village has a few elements all its own. You can’t really fill
all your villages with key people and points of interest and then hope
the players will enjoy them. Villages are part of living and breathing
worlds. They trade with other villages, supply cities, support castles,
and are a place to live. The locals will have opinions on the government
and what’s happening in the world. Some people might have heard of the
player’s characters, others might not. Always try to include a special
element in your best villages.

Whilst I was cruising around Amazon the other day I noticed two cool things: 1. my book has returned to the price of free, and 2. there's a book called Basic Fantasy selling at cost in the Books section of Amazon.com.

I checked out the 'look inside' preview and read some of the reviews. Soon I found out that it was a remake of the original D&D designed by a load of people who were giving it away for free along with many adventures and other fine resources on their website at http://www.basicfantasy.org/downloads.html.

I already own the original D&D books, but if you haven't ever read them before and you're on a budget, this might be the remake to check out. There are a few minor changes from the original, but they're mostly pretty cool, and a savvy GM should be able to fix anything which is seriously messing up the game. Also, even if you're not interested in the game itself, it would be great for ideas.

Tuesday, 15 October 2013

I recently noticed that Amazon has started selling my e-book for $2.99 again instead of the usual price of free. I'd just like everyone to know that I had no hand in this and sent in a request to get it returned to $0.00, but they may have changed how their price matching guarantee works.

If the price remains paid, I may eventually go back to including the book ten times over in the document so that it can be downloaded for free in the sample. At the moment, I don't have a lot of time to mess around with that. Perhaps when I do a revision of the book?

In the meantime, Challenger still seems to be free everywhere else. Thanks for your understanding!